Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-27
THE BOOMING SOUTH.
Birmingham, Bessemer and Skeffi cid
and Their Growing Industries
Towns Which Have Sprung
Into New Life at the Magic Touch of Goal
and Iron-Figures Found Among
the Furnaces and Mines.
PhIladelnhiR Press.

q great deal of the traditional romance OF
discovery about the development of this
new manufacturing region. The original
finder was an enthusiast, first poor, then
rich from It's mines, then poor again, and
finally dying suddenly, with his property
all in other peoples hands, but his belief
in coming millions for himself and every
pody who Joined him as strong as ever.
The oldest inhabitants, those who have
been here some eight or ten years, say
that he was q grey bearded, stoop-
shouldered old fanatic, who was never
tired OF talking about the wealth in the
mountains. He argued the matter with
everybody he met, showed them the
samples of coal and iron that he found in
his wanderings, and finally got
enough of them to believe his
stories to form 3 company ana in
vest g few dollars. A few years after
wards they, or others, owned the mines
he opened, and he, still prospecting, went
up to Louisville TO interest northern
capitalists, and there took sick and died.
His name was Thomas Peters. He was
born up in North Carolina, educated
pretty well in such schools as were near
mis- home, and served in the Confederate
army from beginning to end OF the rebel
lion, coming out efter Lees surrender
with the rank of major. He had tramped
ell over the Alabama mountains with the
army, noticing the iron and coal deposits
and probably helping in the mining which
produced the Confederate guns captured
at Selma; and at the close OF the war
came back again to prospect once more,
and If possible get other officers inter-
ested in the new development. At that
time, however, people began to regard
him as i'll balanced. He was fauati-
cally religious, interested as much in
the Methodist church as in the
probabilities for q new manufacturing
district and as wildly enthusiastic about
the certainty of an universal membership
as he was about iron and mining stocks
going above par. He had family troubles
also which added TO his strange ruputa-
ton. Either be or his brother killed
man named Van Horn ia Tennessee, and
the stories of the affair, exaggerated TO
suit his supposed mental condition, fol-
lowed him wherever he went. His com
psny took a long time TO organize and
still longer time to secure any capital,
but he still pushed it on, and as g last re-
suit got The mine opened, which spoke for
itself.
His later history was only q repetition
of misfoTtunes. Money poured in on
him until he was worth 100000 or
$500, 600, but he invested it as enthusiast
tically as before in thousands OF acres OF
lSnd, and finally went down swamped
in mis- own schemes of magnificent
wealth. He tried the same plans
afterwards, buying more land each time
he came to the surface, but nearly
always was unable to pay for it, and at
last died suddenly without enough money
to bury him. Birmingham appreciated
his services, however, after he was dead,
and he was buried there with all the hon
ors that he failed TO get IN life.
FALLING INTO OTHER HANDS,
The immense traCt of land which he
purchased, extending out in every direc-
ton from the city, fell into the hands of
the companies which he had been instru-
mental in forming, or through them into
the hands of other companies, who have
them now inextricably mixed with prop
critics of their own. At one time or an
other, however, Peters had in his posses
sion whole mountains of iron and coal,
and tits safe to say that if no other mines
had been opened the whole industrial sys-
tenn OF the new South could still be op-
Grated in tracts to which he once held
title.
Most of these lands were in the south
ern portion of the great belt, which is the
making of the new south. Altogether it
extends over a wide area of territory. To
get some general idea of 1t the best plan
is to imagine an immense trough, with
it's point some thirty miles north of
southwesterly to the center of AISbama
and its base reaching from the Missis-
sippi line on the west to g point two
thirds of the way to the line Of Georgia.
That would make Birmingham east of the
center of the broadcast part and the Pc
ters' property, the irregular belt reaching
through the valley in which it is located
toward the eastern limits of the deposits.
A better idea of the territory will have to
include one or two great spurs beyond
the triangular lines and some half dozen
detached fields, generally of less imp0r-
lance both as to quantity and quality of
the minerals. The Sequstchi district,
the equal of Birmingham in value, lies
about thirty miles to the west of Chatta-
nooga. 1t extends up the long valley of
the same name some sixty miles, and has
its outlet at the new town of South Pitts
burg. In great many respects il is the
same as the Birmingham region. On one
side of the valley at Birmingham is the
iron ore and on the other the coal. In the
Sequatchi, the sixty miles of the eastern
range are, as the prospectors say, solid
with coal, while on the other side the iron
is equally abundant. In the low grounds
between is the limestone, needed for
fuXing. Up the mountain ranges from
Chattanooga there is coal developed as a
matter of fact, almost all the way down
from the Pennsylvania and Virginia re-
gions, while toward the west IRON and
coal in separate districts, but IN large de-
posits, continues nearly all the way to
where the Tennessee and Cumberland run
in the Ohio.
None of this development, except the
Sequatchi Valley, is particularly new,
and northern readers, especially, have
had it written at them for years in the |
prospectuses of mining companies and |
the advertisements in newspapers. it |
becomes an actual fact, however, in this |
valley where one can stand on hill of
iron-ore and feel the smoke from the
great collieries opposite, and it seems
necessary to repeat it to explain why